U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released the following statement regarding President Obama’s comments Friday on the NSA’s gathering of Americans’ private phone records:

“We should always be mindful of the need for government to have the tools necessary to keep Americans safe in a dangerous world, where there are enemies plotting to attack us. We have seen the face of that enemy time and again, most recently in the terrorist attacks at Fort Hood, Benghazi and Boston to name a few.

“But on one hand the Obama Administration says this enemy is in retreat, yet on the other, they are implementing what appears to be an unprecedented and intrusive surveillance system on private American citizens in the name of guarding against that enemy. Just today, the president encouraged us to trust him on this – to trust that there are safeguards to ensure our privacy is protected, trust that there is a system of checks and balances to prevent an abuse of power. But in light of this Administration’s track record, how can they expect to be trusted?

“We have discovered over the past few months an ongoing pattern of wanton disregard not only for Americans’ privacy, but for the truth – the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) refusal to be forthcoming about drone policy, Internal Revenue Service targeting groups for their political beliefs and then misleading the American people about it, DOJ’s targeting of journalists for doing their jobs, and now what seems an unprecedented intrusion into Americans’ personal phone records and potentially into their broader online activities.

“Americans trusted President Obama when he came to office promising the most transparent administration in history. But that trust has been broken and the only way to earn it back is to tell the truth. That’s what Americans deserve. I will be working with my colleagues in the Senate who share my concerns to ensure that we have all the facts about these surveillance programs, and that our government is appropriately balancing concerns of national security with Americans’ personal liberties.”

This is a very understated approach being taken by Sen. Cruz with respect to this matter. We can afford to be less diplomatic than he was in this statement. The fact of the matter is that BOTH major political parties of the duopoly ruling over us have cooperated over the past 12 years and probably longer in attempting to institute the type of police state described in George Orwell’s classic novel 1984.

The legislative and executive powers that be in this country have decided that 1984 is a training manual for them rather than a warning against totalitarianism as it was portrayed when many of us studied it in school.

There are two parties who have, by their actions during this century, forfeited the right to rule over Americans. They are called Democrats and Republicans. Neither can be trusted and an increasing percentage of the population is wisely deciding never to cast a vote for either of them again, not that voting really changes anything.

Even if voting mattered, with the hackable electronic voting systems of today, who really knows if the votes are being counted honestly? What is good about recent events is that it finally ends the tired old argument about whether “we” are a “democracy” or a “republic.” Obviously, “we” are neither. “They” (the “Republicrats”) rule over “us” in an increasingly repressive “oligarchy.”

Wikipedia defines this form of government as follows:

“Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next. In his 2011 book Oligarchy, Jeffrey A. Winters defines oligarchy as ‘the politics of wealth defense by materially endowed actors.’ In Winters’ definition, massive wealth is the key factor in identifying oligarchs.

“Throughout history, oligarchies have been tyrannical (relying on public obedience and/or oppression to exist) or relatively benign. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, but oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy.”